alienation familiar

Oxytocin is released in a wide variety of ways which have no direct physiological basis.  Shaking hands, hugs, eye contact - release must occur by subjective interpretation.  This is learned and often very cultural.  There may be some underlying instinct or sensory benefit, but for the most part, we learn what hugs mean.  We learn to respond to them with oxytocin, when we're within normal ranges for a healthy well functioning endocrine system.

Another interesting facet of oxytocin is that it's extremely tribal.  I wonder if it could even be the physiological basis for tribalism.  Under it's influence, we feel warmth, sympathy, and trust for those that we recognize as one of our own.  Alienation from those we perceive to be other, not one of us.

So, back to my first point, oxytocin is released by social rituals and normative familiar behaviors.  When people fail to signal their familiarity, oxytocin isn't released.  Without oxytocin, the default state is distrust.  It can run a gamut, from hate to fear to indifference.  It strongly moves the needle in that direction, while individual propensities for those feelings also vary widely for myriad other reasons.

It's a cooperative process, where such signal failures result in distrust, the disconcerting absence of oxytocin on both sides.  If someone shakes your hand in a way that's alienating, or refuses to shake it at all, the pathology is shared.  The alienated will also be perceived as alienating.

The depressed often talk of the need to keep up a facade, as if most of us understand intuitively how problematic it can be not to go through the proper signaling behaviors.  I've learned to act like a more normal human being in all sorts of ways.  I even smile for you bastards.  I hate smiling.  Staring into your eyes while trying to listen to whatever asinine noises you're making, I do that too.  Still, my behavior might not be quite familiar and normative enough.  It doesn't come naturally to me, for whatever myriad reasons.